Baddies in books: Humbert Humbert, the most seductive villain in fiction

The scariest beast in Nabokovs Lolita isnt the perverted Jimmy Savile figure Quilty, but the evasive, smug Humbert

More baddies in books: Sauron, literatures ultimate source of evil

To what extent are literary villains changed by history? Its a question that is never more sharply posed than by that most slippery of fictional monsters, Humbert Humbert. I first encountered him by torchlight when I was not much older than Lolita. In my 1970s boarding school, he shared a space beneath the mattress with John Clelands Fanny Hill two classic novels that connected with adolescent fantasy in ways that couldnt be exposed to the light of day, even though both books had been purloined from perfectly respectable adult bookshelves.

For a 1970s teenager, Lolita was glamorously erotic. I know I wasnt alone in fantasising about what it might be like to be a gum-popping nymphet, whisked away on a road trip by a handsome literary sophisticate. I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on the sex interests of children, start the responses stirring in a little girl: clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous voice, broad shoulder, Humbert tells us. Moreover, I am said to resemble some crooner or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush.

Continue reading...